1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a convection oven and, more particularly, to a convection oven capable of improving performance of cooking food items or heat treatment performance of materials and shortening a heating time by removing a phenomenon that an internal temperature of a heating chamber is not uniform.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an oven is a device for applying heat to a material placed in a closed heating chamber. In case of a home oven, the oven is commonly used as a cooking device for heating food items and in case of an industrial oven, the oven is used to heat or melt various materials or test samples at a certain temperature.
One of important criteria for evaluating performance of the oven is heat distribution capability over a heating target, namely, a food item or a material. This is because how successfully a food item is cooked or a material is thermally processed can be determined according to how uniformly heat is distributed. For example, if heat is inclined to a location within the oven while a food item is being cooked, the food item would be burned or less cooked and a cooking time would be lengthened as much.
Within the heating chamber, hot air can be mixed with naturally generated convection flow, but the degree is too small to obtain a sufficient effect. Thus, in order to increase a heat spreading speed and obtain uniform temperature distribution in the oven, various techniques have been developed.
One of the typical techniques is an installation of a fan within the oven to forcibly circulate internal air of the oven to cause convection. However, convection generated by the fan may contribute to distribute heat, but not enough and hot air flowing is still partially concentrated (not uniform), causing a phenomenon that temperatures at locations are high or low within the oven.